Recovering the Philippines' richesNational treasure

RAIDERS in search of the lost art stowed away by Ferdinand Marcos during his two decades of dictatorial rule have turned their attention to a recent haul of 15 paintings. The task now is to have them authenticated. The investigators’ hope is that they have part of a valuable collection the Marcos family would have acquired with the proceeds of their fabled corruption. The government agency with the task of recovering the Marcos loot, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), says court-appointed sheriffs seized the paintings in a series of raids on homes and an office belonging to the late president’s widow, Imelda Marcos (the lady herself is pictured above, seated in a Manila flat in 2007). But the commission cannot yet be sure that the 15 paintings are worth anything more than (by Marcos standards) loose change.

The sheriffs were acting on an order issued on September 29th by a special court that tries cases of official corruption. The order was for the seizure of eight paintings identified specifically—a Michelangelo, a Picasso, a Goya, a Gauguin, a Bonnard, a Buffet, a Pissarro and a Miró—or any of 144 works of art that the PCGG alleges the Marcoses bought with ill-gotten gains. The commission estimates that the family spent at least $7m on the eight targeted paintings, and expects that today the same works are worth many times more. At least one of the seized 15, it is hoped, belongs to the specially designated set of eight. The paintings will be held in the central bank as security in case the court orders the Marcoses to make restitution of stolen assets.

Only the first raid—on a Marcos house in Metropolitan Manila—yielded any paintings. In the course of their next four searches, the sheriffs found plenty of bare walls. Mrs Marcos herself, 85 years old and still a member of Congress, was present during the search of one of her apartments. One news report quoted her lawyer’s description of her: shocked, but composed. Three of the paintings seized from the first house were renditions of Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child. The PCGG was unable to say immediately whether any or all of the 15 works seized might be authentic—or duplicates, or forgeries. It is consulting experts from international auction houses.

The PCGG is used to being patient. It has been at work since 1986, when a popular uprising overthrew Mr Marcos. The original head of the commission estimated that the Marcoses looted $10 billion from the public and private sectors. By the end of last year it had recovered about $3.7 billion, most of it in company shares, real estate and bank deposits. Its work has been hampered by a profusion of fantasies about the Marcos fortune—such as the myth that its core was a hoard of gold, hidden by the Japanese in the second world war and discovered by Mr Marcos. But the main hindrance to the commission’s work is that no court has yet heard sufficient evidence to put Mrs Marcos behind bars. And the commission cannot confiscate anything of hers if they cannot prove that it was stolen in the first place.

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